Part of Who We Are
by Lina Inverse the Dramata
Summary: "No matter when it happens, it's always a surprise, to look to you for love and see old shadows in your eyes... I never tried to hurt you but that matters not a damn, if you cannot see the who of me behind the thing I am..."


Notes: This is a Filia/Xellos story and you really should read the lyrics. They scream this pair. Anyway, this is kinda angsty, don't kill me, I'm trying to figure out if THIS is the sequel to story I wrote with these two in, 'People are People'. If you wanted to know when this takes place, it's after the slayers group left in TRY, like, three hundred years after…. 

**Part of Who We Are **

Filia stirred the beef stew with a steady hand as she listened to Val go on about his day as he munched on an apple, she heard him, yet she didn't, she was off again, in her own little world of thought. Was what she was doing right? How could it be? This was evil and goodness she was thinking about, and there are only two sides right? She sighed, why couldn't anything just be black and white again?

"…And then we had sex." Val's words pierced through the blanket of fog over her mind, which halted to a stop.

"YOU DID WHAT?!?" her screech carried throughout the house scaring a few random people on the streets, meanwhile Val was putting stray hairs back into place.

"I wasn't serious! It's just that you were ignoring me again! And you know I hate that mom!" he told her.

"My, my, what seems to be the problem Filia?" Xellos' cheerful voice came from behind her and her face went from anger, to that deadened emotionless expression.

Val frowned at what he saw but looked up to Xell with an innocent shrug, "Oh I was just telling her about my day."

Xellos smirked, "Busy little beaver I see."

"I'm nearly three hundred years old!"

"Yes, which is barely seventeen in earth years. Don't forget, your mother here is five hundred and fifty, and at two hundred and fifty she acted like a ten year old and looked sixteen. Regular spit fire actually…" Xellos expected to get hit, or at the very least yelled at for that, but Filia seemed to ignore him for a moment.

"As if you were any better Xellos, nearly two thousand years old three hundred years ago and you acted like YOU were ten!" she went to her food and stirred it some more to keep it from burning. Ok, maybe she wasn't ignoring him.

"I BEG to differ!" he argued, "YOU were the one who started it all!" Val groaned, ready to slam his head against the icebox, great another fight, though he knew it was nothing serious, mainly they did it to tease, but it could get awfully repetitive. "**_I_** was ready to be polite to you! But the first thing you smash in my face is, 'he's an evil monster'." He stuck his tongue out at her and she did the same to him then went back to sulking at her soup.

Xellos sighed; ok her like this wasn't going to be very pleasant… But if he appeased to her like sometimes she would him, maybe he'd at least have her talking to him normally again, "Ok, you win this once." He hugged her from behind and kissed her cheek.

'Once?' Val thought, 'She's won three hundred and nineteen fights so far… twenty with this one.' He smirked and opened up the icebox for food ignoring their conversation.

Filia didn't know if she wanted to shove her emotions aside and just hug and kiss him and let it be all right, or stay there in her mood. As his hand slid to her face, tilting it towards his lips she decided she had no energy to pretend, and she let him kiss her, not responding in any way. Xellos pulled back and frowned, as he looked into her eyes he sighed, "What happened Filia? What's wrong? You act like you hate me." 

_No matter when it happens, it's always a surprise, _

_To look to you for love and see old shadows in your eyes. _

She looked away from him and he frowned as he took her chin in his hand. Her eyes were dark in a way and the depression she was giving off was a nice treat, but he didn't want it… that much.

"Filia?"

Filia looked up to him, and in her heart, as much as she cared for him she felt the weight of… an unspeakable emotion weigh on her. Was she mad? Upset? Regretful? She didn't know. Staying with a monster after all her priestess training…

Xellos pulled back slightly hurt, it was towards him. "Have I done something wrong?" he knew he hadn't, he could tell that much. Why is it she went into these bouts of wondering? Wondering if she should leave him… Wondering if this was right.

"No Xellos…"

"Why are you upset Filia? Tell me."

She looked up to him and she bit her lip lightly, "I keep thinking…. Doubting, worrying…"

"About?"

"Whether you love me, whether this is right! How can you love? You're a Mazoku, and I'm a Ryuzoku, you KILLED my kind, you were ready to betray us! And, as much as we've done, it gnaws away at my mind constantly!"

Val had been munching on a pre-made sandwich and winced as she brought up the rather sore subject. 'Should I leave?' he didn't know if he could without being spotted… Xellos went quiet and kept his expression neutral.

_I never tried to hurt you, but that matters not a damn, _

"Filia, I told you, that was war. It had to be done-"

"You enjoyed it! You held a smile on your face I'm sure of it!"

Xellos winced, "That is a part of life, things happen, had I known-" he stopped.

"You still would have done it! Orders are orders!" she threw at him.

"Yes." He answered quietly. "I never wanted you to suffer like this… at one time yes, but not now."

"Right."

'Dear gods I'm getting out of here, before I'm brought into this…' he made his way to the door and then silently left, glad they were too busy to notice him. He positioned himself outside the door to listen as they went on.

_If you cannot see the who of me, behind the thing I am. _

"Listen Filia, me apologizing is NEVER going to help us! Do you know why you keep doubting? Cause you keep going back to WHAT I am!! Not who, but _what_! If you can't see past that you're always going to be miserable with me no matter how much we care for each other!" he cut himself off and breathed in deeply, he shouldn't have said that.

_In your willing arms I thought my heart-safe harbor lay, _

_Till a stranger stepped between us from a hundred miles away. _

Filia wiped at a tear and sniffled; he had said it, that he cared for her. She hadn't thought…. "Xellos, I… You know I love you, dearly, that's the only reason I gave my heart to you."

'And mine to you.' He almost whispered, he had turned around to stare out one of the kitchen windows. 'This was a mistake, this is going to destroy me, I know it…' it had only been a mere conversation and inside he was hurting badly, from what… only he knew…

She drew in a breath, "But Zellas… She… one day… I have no idea why; she came here to see me. She knows and knew of us, she told me… some things."

Val's eyebrows raised, THE beast master had… been there? When? When he was gone?

Xellos said nothing, his back to her all the while, but had she seen his face, he would have seen it go dark, with anger, and his eyes were open as he stared to the opposite kitchen wall. So that's why. Zellas-sama had informed her of the true nature of Mazoku in general and probably some things about him, and then that seed of doubt grew to this.

_When you most need a shoulder, when I most need you near, _

_I can't even comfort you, when I am what you fear. _

Filia slumped down to the floor crying lightly, arms wrapped around herself, she wished he could hold her and just say that everything would be all right, and that it would be true.

He went over to her and kneeled down, he ran a hand down Filia's cheek slowly. "Filia, I want to hold you, kiss your tears away, dare I say it, I want to comfort you, but it wouldn't help, I can't even comfort you, because I'm what you fear."

Filia looked to him and tried to hold back from crying again, he was right. She was afraid of him, his nature to be more exact. And while she wanted comfort, it wouldn't help her at all.

_I thought what lay between us no one else could reach to mar, _

_All that we were raised to be, is part of who we are. _

"I was foolish to think that…" she breathed out, "That we would be strong enough that nothing could destroy us, I thought a lot of things in the beginning."

Val winced, 'Don't talk like that mother… he loves you… even I can see that… he's really not too bad… well maybe a little but still…'

"I understand…." He sat down in front of her. "This is going to hurt you a lot, and you know we'll never change, what we are now, is who we were raised to be. It's not going to change very easy, if at all." He touched her hand, "You realize that I could have been in a lot of trouble…"

Val looked at the door in surprise as if it were Xellos himself. Been in trouble…? Of course… Xellos was a Mazoku.

_I took the space within your heart that you'd so dearly wrought, _

"I never told you have I?" he asked.

"Told me what?"

"That a long time ago I had sealed my emotions off, I refused to have anything to do with the dreadful things. I had literally hidden my heart away so no one could ever affect me… I didn't know that I'd meet you…"

Filia listened in a kind sick curiosity along with the hovering Val.

_And never knew your courage by the weight of what you fought. _

"You know how hard it is for you to open up, how hard it is for you to love, especially someone like me, that's nothing compared to what I go through Filia. Being with you is not only against social laws; it's against my nature. You realize how out of character it is for a Mazoku to… be in my position, with a dragon? Or anyone else for that matter?"

'Damn, I never really thought about that.' Val frowned, 'If Xellos even THINKS of leaving mother I'll personally see to a fitting revenge for him.'

She shook her head. "Is that why you haven't said anything remotely close to, 'I love you'?" Xellos didn't answer, but in the silence his answer was known. "All along? You've cared? But…" she trailed off into her thoughts; 'What of those times when you were cold. Ignored me, or brushed me off, was it just in your nature?'

_In blood and pain and fire as we struggle to be true, _

"I've done what I could to make you happy Filia." He went silent again, this was hurting him, he hated opening up, especially when it came to outright emotions. Love was a tool of destruction, and admitting it, or even hinting at something close to it was dangerous. Mazoku were prideful creatures, admitting weakness could literally kill them; these kinds of emotions were weaknesses. Which is why he only showed his emotions in his actions.

_If I tried to fight your demons might I end by fighting you?_

"Xellos, I've tried so much to help you when I could tell you were fighting some kind of internal battle… I didn't know that it hurt you, and put you into danger just by admitting or feeling love… I just hate it when…at times it seems you're alone even why I try to… I try to help you Xellos but most the time… when I try to help fight those internal demons… there are times I nearly end up fighting you." She rested against the cupboard to look at him as he joined her on sitting on the floor.

Val frowned. Enough was enough, he wasn't going to sit by and watch them tear each other apart, he pushed his hand against the door and let it swing open, "Xellos, I need to talk to you."

Xellos looked to him, to Filia then nodded, he kissed Filia's cheek and walked out with Val who proceeded to lead him out the front and out to the side where there was a blooming garden that Filia had started within the past three years.

"So you heard our little conversation Val?"

"You know I did… You're not going to leave her are you? You know that would break her!"

"I never said I'd do anything of the sort. But if I'm ordered to leave, I would, without so much as a backwards glance if I had to. She doesn't seem to realize how fragile this… relationship is. She either takes it for granted, as a stolen season, or a falsity."

"You know she can't help that! She's just as scared as you are!" Val stopped as Xellos' face lightly twitched before going neutral.

"I am not afraid."

"Maybe, or maybe you're lying to me and yourself. You have to comfort mother, you just have to. I can't stand to go through another of her depressions." He sighed wearily.

"Val, let me explain, while your mother and I may be something akin lovers, I don't have to do anything. No matter what I… feel, I can do nothing to betray my nature without it damaging me. I _do_ do what I can Val, I really can't do and promise more then I can give. Please understand I am doing all I can…"

As they went silent they heard a low sob emit from the kitchen window that faced the garden, which was open…

"Oh no." Val muttered, slapping his hand to his forehead. "Damn it all! Mother?" He went around the house to enter through the front door while Xellos just teleported directly into the kitchen to see a huddled Filia crying into her apron.

_We reach toward each other, but some gaps are just too far,_

_All that we were raised to be is part of who we are. _

"Fi-chan? Come here…" He lowered himself down and opened his arms as she moved just barely to let him secure his arms around her, and pull her towards him the rest of the way. "Filia please stop you tears, I wasn't lying, and it's not that I don't l… It's not that this whole… " he fought for the words as his insides twisted, "What we have is not a falsity, or a game… But confusion, doubt, and fear are going to tear this apart sooner or later and we both know it. I'm surprised we were even able to… get as far as we did in only three hundred years… No one would have thought it possible, not even I at one point. But because of who we are…"

_The pattern of the injury is written in the scar, _

"I know Xellos…" she sniffled slightly. "All this hurt is caused by… what and who we are. But… please… does it… it can't…" she refused to say the word, 'end'.

Xellos looked at her, eyes open, almost compassionate… no, she reminded herself, Mazoku would never let that show, meaning it was probably only pity, and nothing more. She nearly screamed at the unfairness of it all.

"Not if I have any say in the matter." His voice was so low she strained to hear it, even with her acute dragon hearing. 'Not that I really do.' He added to himself mentally.

"Do you promise?" she breathed.

"Filia, I won't, and can't, promise that. Nor would I if I could." He lifted his chin so she was looking him in the eyes, his own open, "Promises are made to be broken. But I give you my word I will do my best… Just please, do me the same courtesy and try not to let these doubts cloud you… I will stay as long as it pleases my Mistress."

Her heart constricted at the reminder of just how temporary this all could be and she sobbed from the misery of it all, while he did his best to soothe her.

_All that we were raised to be is part of who we are._

~~*~~


End file.
